Tokyo Times

With the light in the spot below only like this at a certain time of year, and of course only on certain days, the temptation to keep returning is hard to resist. Then when I am there, there’s a similar temptation to wait for the next person of interest, then one more after that, and finally one last one — on loop.

This early black and white shot remains my favourite, but I’m also happy with a couple of recent colour ones: this stylish young woman, and an older, bearded man.

Plus now there’s this one to add to the list as well.

A sunny walk up the street to the local shops.

Then the walk back home a little later with all the day’s provisions.

Back in September 2016, I took this photo, in a certain way, and at a certain time of the day.

Then last week I took another photo in more or less the same spot, but this time in a different way, at a different time of the year, and under considerably different lighting conditions. An exercise that seemed entirely fitting, as the wonderfully arranged streets are themselves now slightly different.

There were numerous drafts of this, but none of them felt appropriate, or managed to capture the horribly poignant nature of that jarring English phrase. Then it dawned on me that the words in the photograph said something, but at the same time had absolutely zero substance, and that seemed entirely fitting considering how the problem of poverty is almost always approached.

There’s a lot to like about Tokyo, but as far as descriptions of the city go, laid back generally isn’t one of them. And yet that said, Sunday mornings surely don’t get much more serene than this.